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Sunday, February 26, 2006
Courts - Kentucky trial of ex-judge - was he the victim of his rivals, or was he guilty of theft by deception?
A long and intriguing story today in the Louisville Courier Journal, written by Michael Lindenberger and Andrew Wolfson, is headlined "Ex-judge to answer his critics at own trial." Here is just the beginning:
To former Judge William Stewart, looking back, his ouster from the bench began with a silent coup pulled off by his Shelby County courthouse rivals. Now he will get his chance to prove it.Tomorrow, he and his wife, Sarah Dutton, will stand trial on charges of theft by deception.
In a trial that has been moved to Franklin Circuit Court and is expected to last more than a week, Stewart is accused of authorizing full-time pay for Dutton when she was working half time for him. The attorney general's office, which is prosecuting the pair, said that resulted in overpayments to Dutton of between $30,000 and $40,000.
But the couple's lawyers plan to put Stewart's accusers on trial -- the four top officials who Stewart says tried to bring him down for their own gain. All four have been subpoenaed to testify.
"Sarah and I feel like this is our chance for the citizens -- those people without any special interest -- to see everything all out in the open," Stewart said in an interview last week.
To Stewart, 61, the beginning of the end of his 20-year judicial career came in 2004, when the group of four -- District Judge Mike Harrod, then-County Attorney Charles Hickman, Assistant County Attorney Hart Megibben and Commonwealth's Attorney Fielding Ballard III -- began meeting repeatedly. They were devising an anonymous letter accusing Stewart of an array of misconduct, according to Ballard.
The allegations included claims that Stewart padded his wife's time sheets and favored black and Hispanic defendants.
Warning of "blood on the streets" if Stewart stayed in office, the April 6, 2004, letter to Kentucky's Judicial Conduct Commission was signed "many concerned citizens" and hinted that one would be killed if he went public.
But it was written by Ballard and edited by Hickman.
Ballard kept his role as author secret for more than a year. When threatened with contempt charges by Stewart's lawyers, he admitted he had written it -- with contributions from Harrod, Hickman and Megibben, he said.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 26, 2006 10:54 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts